


fire & water

by museaway



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fairies, M/M, is Rin annoyed or is he in love?, pining via irritation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27983715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museaway/pseuds/museaway
Summary: In which Rin and Haru are fairies who live in the same clearing and can't stand each other. Or maybe Rin is very, very wrong about that last part.
Relationships: Matsuoka Rin/Nanase Haruka
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29





	fire & water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eleen/gifts).



> Written for Eleen! She won a little Twitter giveaway I ran to celebrate the beginning of the year and was so patient about me taking all year to write it! It's based on her prompt, which I've included in the end notes. 
> 
> I imagine Rin and Haru as their anime counterparts sprung fully-grown from flowers. You can imagine them however you like!

No matter the weather, it was always pleasant in the clearing. The trees that stood around the edges bowed their heads toward its center, creating a verdant umbrella in the summer, and in the wintertime the branches caught so much of the snow that very little of it ended up on the forest floor.

Rin had lived in the forest since the day he was born, sprung from a flame-red plum blossom in an estate garden a few miles north of the woods. Frightened by his new surroundings and finding himself alone, he’d instinctively flown toward what he perceived as shelter. Anything green must be safe. The sun hurt his eyes, so new to the world, and while his body seemed to crave heat he couldn’t fly away from the sun fast enough, flapping his still-drying wings with such force the muscles in his back burned. They eventually cramped, the weak membranes crumpling in on themselves, and sent him tumbling. How many other fairies had lived such a pitiful existence? He had no choice but to accept his fate.

The wind rushed up, scattering the fiery ends of his hair around his face. Rin braced for the impact, scrunching up his face in pain he didn’t feel, not yet. He hadn’t lived long enough to experience pain, but he still knew to fear it, just as he somehow knew to mourn the life he’d only lived for moments.

The pain never came. When he opened his eyes, he was sprawled on a bed of spongy moss looking up at a lush canopy of trees. Also in his field of vision was something blue—two blue things, in fact. Round and captivating, as blue as the sky he could see through a break in the leaves.

The blue things blinked.

Rin startled, realizing he was looking into another fairy’s eyes. He didn’t know what a fairy was supposed to look like, since he had no idea of his own appearance except for the color of his hair. He had no idea if the fairy he was looking at was a friend or foe. But he felt, as instinctively as he had known the woods would be safe, that this person meant no harm.

Rin sat up and rubbed his head. “Where am I?” he asked.

The fairy with blue eyes blinked again. That was how Rin had met Haru.

They saw each other every day in the clearing, no matter the time of year. Rin had lived there for many of them now, nearly as many as Haru, who had found the clearing the winter before Rin fell. Haru was a water fairy who thrived in the rain; Rin, it turned out, commanded fire. Neither of them was suited to a clearing safe from the sun and precipitation, but they were both stubborn and neither would agree to leave.

“Hey, Haru,” Rin said one early summer day, tipping back a yellow flower he’d swiped from Nagisa’s field. The dew was still cool from the moonlight and tasted a little like stars.

Haru looked at him from the corner of his eyes.

“Shouldn’t you live near a river or something?” Rin said. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked.

Haru sighed, which was about as much conversation as Rin ever got out of him. He was chewing on a bit of fish he’d dried in the sun. Gross. Well, anything was better than the worms Makoto brought when he visited. Rin only ate them to be polite.

“Shouldn't you live somewhere warm?” Haru replied, which both surprised and annoyed Rin.

From the moment he’d fallen here, he’d liked the clearing and the moss, the cool air. Haru’s strange eyes. A fairy like Rin would probably be more comfortable living in a sun-drenched field like Nagisa, a cheerful wind sprite who napped on wildflowers, or Rei, a precocious butterfly Rin tolerated only because Haru seemed to like him. Even Makoto’s island in the lake would probably be better, but he had no reason to leave.

“I like it here,” Rin muttered.

“I like it here too,” Haru said under his breath and swiped the flower from Rin’s hands.

He was always like that, taking things that belonged to Rin. How annoying. Rin snatched the flower back. Sometimes he thought it would be better if Haru wasn’t here. Being around him made Rin itch. He was always aggravated with Haru nearby, but that was to be expected. They had opposing elements after all. Even though he was still young, Rin was certain that you never heard of water and fire elementals living together. Their very natures canceled each other out.

“Want to race to the field and back?” Rin said, feeling the stirrings of discomfort at the base of his wings that only flying could relieve. It only happened when Haru was near.

Haru shook his head the way he did whenever Rin suggested they do something together.

“I know, I know,” Rin muttered. “You've told me a hundred times at least. You only fly _free_.”

“If you know, why do you keep asking?”

Rin shrugged. “Maybe one day you’ll change your mind.”

“I’ll fly with you,” Haru said. “But I don’t care who wins.”

How ridiculous. What was the point if you didn’t fly as fast as you could? Rin would be happy the day Haru finally got tired of the clearing and another fairy came to live in his place. His eyes weren’t the only blue things in the world.

* * *

Rin’s wish for a new neighbor came true sooner than he’d thought.

On a rainy afternoon, while he and Haru huddled beneath leaves to keep out of the rain (a strange thing for a water fairy to do, but Haru was strange), there was a commotion from the treetops. Rin looked up in time to see someone falling out of the sky: a fairy with wings the same color as Rin’s—another fire elemental?

He darted out from under the leaf, catching the fairy before he met his death on a jagged stump.

“Thanks,” the fairy said, rubbing his shoulder.

“Are you hurt?”

“A bird had me. One with a big head.”

“That must’ve been Iwatobi-chan,” Rin said.

“You know him?”

“Haru does. He’ll tell him not to bother you anymore.”

“Do you live here?”

Rin nodded.

“Aren’t you fire?” the fairy asked.

Rin felt suddenly protective of the clearing and of Haru, who was watching them.

“So?” he said.

“Then do you mind if I stay?” the fairy said and Rin felt bad for assuming his question had been scornful.

“Haru?” Rin said, looking over his shoulder.

“Do what you want,” Haru mumbled.

“I’m Rin,” said Rin, turning back to the fairy.

“Sousuke.”

Sousuke seemed friendly enough, and it wasn’t like either Rin or Haru actually owned the clearing. Having someone else around meant not having to navigate Haru’s temperament in order to entertain himself. Haru flew up to speak with Iwatobi about not attacking the clearing’s newest resident, and Sousuke made a home inside of a hollow log.

Every morning, Rin drifted down from his nest halfway up a black pine tree. He perched on the edge of the log, kicking his feet and waiting for Sousuke to come out and talk. Sousuke had hurt his shoulder in the accident and couldn’t fly for a while, but he was good company and knew of the world beyond the field. After a few weeks, they were good friends.

Often, they would spot Haru across the clearing watching them.

“What’s his deal?” Rin said one day when it had finally become annoying enough to say something about it.

“He’s jealous,” Sousuke said.

“Of what!”

“That you give me your attention.”

Rin decided then that Sousuke might be stranger than Haru. “We can barely stand each other,” he said.

“Haven’t you lived together for a long time?”

“Yeah, but that’s only because neither one of us is willing to leave. It’s not like we _want_ to be together.”

“Oh? You seem fond of him.”

“Of Haru?” Rin made a rude noise and flicked his wings, which were beginning to feel strange again. His fire energy flared under his skin. “He was the only fairy I saw for a while. It’s natural we like each other a _little_.”

Sousuke must have thought that was funny because he laughed. Sick to death of the conversation, Rin opened his wings before they rotted off.

“Where are you going?” Sousuke said.

“Flying. Since Haru won’t race me and you can’t fly right now, I’m going to the field.”

Rin darted out through the trees.

“Wait, Rin—!” Haru called after him, his voice growing faint as Rin got farther from the clearing. Haru might have said something else after that, but Rin couldn’t hear him.

It was a hot, bright day outside of the forest—the kind of day that recharged Rin’s energy and made the fire in his body tingle. Butterflies hovered over flowers that had turned their faces toward the sun. Rin looked for Rei among them, but he couldn’t make out the particular pattern of his wings. He didn’t know any of the other butterflies well enough to challenge them. As a rule, butterflies didn’t tend to enjoy racing—Rei was as strange for racing as Rin was for living where there was no sun. Nagisa wasn’t in sight either. With so many flowers in bloom, he could be sleeping on any one of them.

Rin flew until he was tired and landed on the top of a blue flower to pout. It was no fun to fly by himself, but Haru’s idea of flying was boring and none of his other friends were around. What bad luck, but there was no helping it.

Since he’d already left the woods, he decided he might as well take advantage of the sun.

Casting his gaze around, he realized that he had flown much farther from the woods than he had meant to. The flowers weren’t a kind he’d seen before. What he sat on was actually a cluster of small blue flowers prettily arranged in a circle. He’d seen that shade of blue before, in a pair of eyes across a clearing.

His wings itched.

Rin lay back and sighed, shielding his face from the sun. He drifted in and out of sleep for a while when from high up in the brightest point in the sky where it hurt to look, he heard a high-pitched noise somewhere between a scream and a cry. Something darted toward him. Before he could get out of the way, pain shot through his midsection. His wings were crushed against his back. He wasn't sure he’d be able to flap them anymore. He yelled, pounding his fists against his attacker. Fire shot uncontrollably from his hands.

He could taste ash and his mind went blank from fear. He gulped air, taking in what was happening to him in pieces. Something dark and solid was clamped around his legs and in his peripheral vision something else was flapping—a bird? Oh, was this the end? The land below passed in a blur like looking across the clearing through the rain.

“Haru,” Rin whispered.

He would never see him again. Haru would think that Rin had finally grown tired of living together and left. It was no use calling for him. Rin had flown beyond where his voice could carry and the bird was taking him even further. The colors beneath them were unlike fields Rin had flown over before.

Eventually his body grew weak. He stopped struggling and let his arms hang free. The wind washed over his face.

 _Ah_ , Rin thought as his eyes went dark. _So this is why he loves it_.

Somewhere in the distance another bird called out a melody. The world stopped existing. All at once there was no more pressure on his legs and no more pain, only the rush of the breeze as his spirit crossed into the next realm. He wondered how he would return the next time—if he _would_ return, or if he’d done such a poor job directing fire that he would be trapped inside of a flower without his wings. He tried to beat them.

“Ow,” Rin said as they tore and bled.

“Hold still.”

Rin startled at the voice but was afraid to open his eyes. “H—Haru?”

“You’re hurt. Don't move.”

Rin didn’t understand why Haru was here with him in the afterlife.

“I followed you,” Haru said, which is how Rin figured out that he was speaking his thoughts out loud. “You’re not dead.”

“Huh?”

Rin chanced a peek at his surroundings—the blue, blue sky and Haru’s blue, blue eyes looking down at him. Whatever the two of them sat on was moving. Haru looked upset, his usual expressionless mouth tight, eyebrows drawn together.

“Where are we?” Rin said.

“Iwatobi-chan is flying us home.”

“It hurts,” Rin said as the pain came back to him.

“Bear with it for a while,” Haru said.

Rin nodded and kept still. His throat was dry from screaming. “Why did you follow me?” he said after a while.

“Don’t you know?” Haru said.

“Did I forget to give you something?”

Haru sighed. “Don’t you know why you were drawn to the clearing?”

“Protection from birds?” Rin guessed.

Haru sighed again. Lightly, he placed a hand on top of Rin’s and something funny happened. A tingling warmth spread down his arm. Never having felt anything like it before, Rin gasped.

“What was that?”

“Balance,” Haru said.

Rin thought about it with a fuzzy brain. “You mean we don’t conflict?”

Haru frowned. “Who told you that we conflicted?”

“Well, I just assumed,” Rin mumbled. “Us being fire and water.”

“You’re weird.”

“You stare at me across a clearing from under your leaf! Who’s the weirder one?”

Haru’s frown deepened. “It’s strange to look at the one you love?”

Love? Rin blinked. He really must be dead after all. “Love,” he said, laughing at the idea. Was this a test? Was he ascending to another world? “Haru would never talk like that. Who are you?”

“Haru.”

“Where do you live?"

“In the clearing with you and Sousuke.”

Anyone could know that. Rin laughed in spite of the pain. “If you’re really Haru, then race me.”

“No way. You’re injured.”

“When I’m better then.”

“Why is racing so important to you?” the maybe-Haru said.

Now that he thought about it, Rin wasn’t certain he knew the answer. Iwatobi descended and the air grew cooler and darker as they entered the woods.

 _Maybe I don’t like being alone_ , Rin thought. After all, it was nice like this, the two of them, even though Haru was awfully strange. The base of Rin’s wings itched again. When he glanced at Haru, his cheeks were pink.

The real Haru didn’t blush, but Rin still filled with alarm.

“What?” he said. Haru’s eyes darted to Rin's wings and away. Rin turned his head. The part of the wing that he could see had burst into red flames.

“It happens every time you look at me,” Haru said.

No way. There was _no way_ anyone could know about the problems Rin had when Haru was around. Unless...unless his wings had been on fire this whole time?! And even then, the only person who could have seen them was Haru, which meant...which meant...

Rin tried to smother his embarrassment. “Shut up!” he said.

“You didn’t know?”

“If I did, do you think I would have let you _see_ it?”

Haru went quiet. When he hadn’t spoken in longer than was comfortable, Rin peeked at him through his fingers. He’d largely forgotten about being in pain. Haru’s face was red, his eyes cast down.

“I'm sorry,” Rin said. “You’re disgusted right? That a fire elemental would become like this around you?”

“If you…” Haru took a breath and started over. “If you didn’t realize, why are you always asking me to race you?”

“So I have to be in _love_ with you for that?”

Having said it, Rin could feel his face turn the color of his hair and his wings flared up again. He groaned into his hands, and then he groaned because of the pain that seized his body. Haru’s hand came down softly on his head.

“Stop talking.” His hand felt as cool as rain. Feverish, Rin turned his face into it.

Iwatobi landed on the floor of the clearing where Sousuke was waiting. Haru helped Rin off of the bird’s back and lay him on the cool soil. Iwatobi pecked around on the floor of the clearing for a while searching for worms. He slurped one down and flapped off. Together, Sousuke and Haru fashioned a leaf for Rin to lie on and flew him up to his tree.

“Your shoulder,” Rin mumbled.

“It’s fine for short flights,” Sousuke said.

He tried to help Haru clean Rin’s injuries, but whenever Sousuke touched him, Rin would grit his teeth and jerk away.

“It burns,” he finally admitted.

Sousuke looked at Haru. Haru touched Rin’s leg where Sousuke’s hand had just been. Rin felt no pain. A cooling sensation spread through him and he sighed. Someone started to laugh. Rin opened one eye. He saw Sousuke’s amused face and went to throw an elbow into his side, but ended up groaning.

“I think I’ll leave you two alone,” Sousuke said as Haru laid his hands on Rin’s stomach. “When you’re hungry, tell me what you want for dinner. I’ll gather it tonight.”

With that he flew out the tree. Rin liked Sousuke, but he felt strangely relieved once he was gone and rolled his neck so his face touched Haru’s knees. It didn’t seem embarrassing to do something so ridiculous while he was feeling this awful.

“Why can’t Sousuke touch me?” he said.

Haru made a very quiet, very-possibly-pleased sound but ignored the question.

“Hey, Haru…” Rin said after a while. “Do you really...about me…”

The way Haru touched his wings so gently, Rin understood.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he muttered.

“I thought it was obvious.”

“It wasn’t obvious at all! I thought you hated me!”

“You’re annoying,” Haru said affectionately. “What do you want to eat?”

“No fish,” Rin moaned, giving up. If Haru loved him, there was nothing he could do about it. “And no worms. They wriggle in my mouth.” He turned his head and opened one eye. “How did you know to come find me?"

“Iwatobi-chan told me there has been a strange bird staking out the woods lately.”

“You could have warned me!”

“I tried.”

“When?”

“As you were leaving.”

“That doesn’t count!” Rin said. “Why didn’t you stop me from leaving?”

Haru didn’t look away but let out a little sigh. Rin’s question rang among the leaves overhead. In all the time they’d lived together, they had never tried to convince the other to stay. It had always been a battle of who would leave first. Rin wasn’t sure how he would react if Haru ever said he actually _wanted_ Rin with him. He might do the opposite of whatever Haru asked out of pride.

Ah.

As though he knew Rin had come to the answer, Haru placed his hands on the top of Rin’s head and stroked his hair.

“Sleep,” he said.

His wings arched over them, glittering like sunlight on water. A sudden rain began to fall, pattering on the leaves. The scent of the air sharpened and the drumming made him tired. Rin fought to keep his eyes open. And though his legs and wings throbbed and he lay within the embrace of a water fairy, he felt warm.

* * *

The weather cooled, freezing the nearby lake and streams. The trees shed their leaves. Whole fields of flowers nodded off to sleep.

Haru rarely moved during the winter, fixed in place like the surface of the lake. He only spoke once or twice a day when the sun was at its highest, although it wasn’t all that different from a summer day since Haru never spoke much. Sousuke took care of them both until Rin had recovered. After that, Rin took to bringing Haru food and wrapping him in leaves to keep warm, and lit pretty purple fires in a pit he’d dug out of the forest floor. The fire warmed the clearing enough that Haru would stretch his wings and soar in the air above it, flitting this way and that, making spirals in the smoke. Sometimes when the sun was just right, Rin caught a rare smile.

One morning, the sun melted the last of the snow and flowers poked green heads out of the soil. Within weeks, Haru and Rin were venturing outside of the forest into the awakening fields. On the first warm day, they took Sousuke and went searching for Nagisa and Rei, finding them with Makoto on a white peony bloom. Rin and Haru settled on the flower next to it, its heavy head bowing in the spring breeze. Haru lay down and rested his head on Rin’s knee.

“Are you still cold?” Rin said.

“Mmm,” said Haru, settling in.

“Don’t sleep! We came here to fly.”

“Well…” Haru mumbled only loud enough for Rin to hear. “I’ll fly later.”

Rei was busy showing off his vibrant orange wings, holding them open at their full expanse. Normally that would’ve been all the motivation Rin needed to challenge him, but there was no reason to hurry today. He leaned back on an arm, absently dropping his other hand onto Haru’s head, smoothing the hair back from his eyes.

Haru turned pink. Rin glared accusingly at the sun. “Should we find shade?” he said, worried that Haru was already burning. But Haru smiled and closed his eyes.

Sousuke challenged Rei to the first race of the season. His shoulder had healed over the winter and he’d been taking short flights every sunrise. Rin could hear his excited voice across the field. Sousuke equalled Rei in speed and agility. He would take the lead, but then Rei would flap three times and glide past him, only for Sousuke to catch him again. They were on their fourth lap around the field and neither had been declared the winner.

“You can join them if you want,” Haru said without looking. Rin twisted a piece of Haru’s hair between his fingers, cool like water.

“I’ll race them later,” he said.

“I thought you were racing _me_ later?’

Rin’s eyes widened and his face grew very, very hot. “You’re actually gonna race me?”

Haru opened one blue eye and winked.

Rin’s wings burst into flames twice his height. Nagisa’s laughter roared all the way to the treeline.

“Stop flirting and get out here, you love birds!” Sousuke called.

That made Rin burn hotter. “I’m not a bird!” he yelled, but the fire only retreated when Haru reached a hand up to touch Rin’s face. Rin shivered as a refreshing sensation passed through him, wings letting off plumes of steam that momentarily shielded them from view.

Haru drew Rin’s face down to him. Rin would never have guessed that someone like Haru would kiss so sensuously. He poured himself into it, the way he poured himself into flight. Sometimes they would kiss for so long, the clearing hung with fog for hours after. Rin thought of dragging him back there now and tumbling together in fresh leaves, but Haru pulled away so suddenly their lips made a smacking noise. Rin reached for him blindly, his arms chasing air.

When he opened his eyes, he was alone in the cloud of steam. Haru’s wings sparkled on the other side and he was gone in a flash.

With Haru no longer touching him, Rin caught fire again. The heat cleared away the lingering steam and he shot after Haru, flying his hardest to catch up. Haru’s wings were strong—as strong as Rin’s—and no matter how fiercely Rin beat his, he couldn’t catch up.

Then, just as suddenly as he’d started the race, Haru changed directions, heading toward the south, then changed again, flying upwards towards the sun.

Rin forgot about catching him, forgot about the others racing the field’s perimeter. He tried to guess Haru’s next direction before he switched it and was soon changing directions himself, flying north and then southwest, or plummeting before charging upwards from the flower tops. When they finally flew into each other, it wasn’t a win or loss. Across the morning they rose and fell on the air currents, linking hands mid-air and spiraling down.

High above, beak curved in a mysterious smile, Iwatobi kept watch.

**Author's Note:**

> Eleen's original prompt: _For the prompt I was thinking of an AU with rin and haru as fairies, where rin has fire magic and haru water magic, and they don't really see the importance of the other's element until they need to work together to accomplish a task. maybe haru "only flies freestyle" until rin comes along and races with him. oh and pining, pining is always good. rin waxing poetically about haru's eyes is always fun. (Oh and haru braiding rin's hair is always a plus.)_
> 
>   
> Thank you to SweetHeaven for reading the unfinished version and helping me figure out the ending, and to taurussieben for beta reading even though this isn't her fandom! And thank you for reading. I was so happy to write rinharu again!
> 
> We'd love to have you join us on the [#ficwip discord](https://ficwip.carrd.co/#contact)!


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